Gainesville Camellia Society Affiliated with the American Camellia Society Editor: Anna Langford May 2018 President’s Message Well it’s May already. Thought it would never come, weather wise, but it IS here and so is the warm weather. Hope everyone made that second fertilizer application already so it will soak in during the week of much-needed rain. My plants look great with the exception of a few leaves with the Swiss cheese feature provided free of charge by the nocturnal seed beetles. These beetles have been particularly active on Virginia Creepers where some of the leaves have been completely skeletonized. It is now possible to tell on most varieties whether or not a flower bud is forming at the end of a branch. A branch with no flower bud forming will at most have a pointed growth bud at the tip. Branches with flower buds forming will have what looks like a knob at the tip, which will later divide into flower buds and growth buds. By the end of June there should be complete differentiation on most plants and preliminary dis-budding and Yushienensis gibbing can begin. page 2 May 2018 Hope some of you have begun to air layer your plants or someone’s plants! By now the bark is no longer tightly attached to the plants and it will easily slip off no matter which technique you use to remove it. Putting on air layers while sweating profusely and dodging hungry mosquitoes can be a challenge, but it will all be worthwhile when you remove these air layers in the fall and have new plants to show for your efforts. Lauren Tudor morphing I was not available for the April meeting, but understand it went ok except for some unscheduled bad weather. Glad nothing became of that and I appreciate the enthusiasm of the members who took over during my absence. I understand that everything was planned for our picnic on the 20th and I’m sure it will be fun. I have missed the last two so I am looking forward to being there. I’m sure Anna will have details in other parts of the newsletter. We will also install the new officers sometime during the feeding frenzy! I am going to cut this short because I am a bit late and Anna is waiting! So look forward to seeing everyone on Sunday. We can also auction off anything you would like to donate! See you soon! Cheers, Midnight Magic Variegated Jerry Hogsette, President page 3 May 2018 Minutes for GCS Meeting - April 15, 2018 John Swanson opened the meeting at 2:15 pm. Attendance was light, because a notice had been sent out that the meeting was cancelled due to bad weather. The program, presented by Hawser Pearce, described techniques, equipment, and supplies for spraying camellias to control insects and other damage. Ville de Nantes John then made several announcements. 1. He reminded us of the air-layering event at the Swansons’ home on April 27th at 9 am. Hawser will demonstrate air-layering techniques and then participants will air- layer plants in the Swanson garden. This will be followed by a pot luck lunch. 2. On April 20th and 21st, Wilmot Gardens will have their semi-annual sale of garden plants, including camellias. The sale will be from 11 am to 5 pm on Friday and from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday. White Giant page 4 May 2018 3. We will have our year-end party and installation of officers at our next meeting, on May 20th. We will meet at 1 pm for drinks, appetizers, and socializing, with food being served at 2 pm. This is a pot luck occasion, and everyone is to bring a side dish, dessert, or appetizer, as well as any wine or other beverages you would like to have. Meats will be provided by GCS. Anna Langford passed around a sign-up sheet for table hosts and will email everyone, since so many people were absent today. Our usual plant auction was held, with plants being donated by the Swansons. The meeting adjourned at 3 pm. Tomorrow’s Dawn Anna Langford for Karen Peeples, Secretary 2017-2018 Meeting Schedule for the Gainesville Camellia Society Date and place of meeting Refreshments Table set-up: Anna & Gerald Langford Cathy Martin Sunday, May 20 Kanapaha Botanical Gardens Merry Reid End-of-year Party Dinh & John Swanson Margaret Wagener & Lucille Little Eileen & Ken Wagner Things to do in May When it is hot and dry, the top priority is keeping plants, particularly recently planted ones, well watered. With the heat come the spider mites. Spray with horticultural oil (with some Orthene added if you can), but be sure to do it late in the day so the sun does not shine on the leaves until the oil has dried. The spraying should be on both the top and underside of leaves. This will take care of tea scale as well as mites. page 5 May 2018 Officers Board Members President: Jerry Hogsette Patrick Andrews Charles Simon 1st VP & Show Chair: Bruce Cavey Jay Ellis John Swanson 2nd VP & Program Chair: Hawser Pearce Bill Hayes Irma Velez Secretary: Karen Peeples Chuck Ritter Ken Wagner Treasurer: Merry Reid Joel Schwiebert Nicki Whittaker Monthly Meeting of the Gainesville Camellia Society Program Chair: Hawser Pearce Date: Sunday, April 18, 2018, at 1 pm Place: Kanapaha Botanical Gardens Program: End-of-Year Party Refreshments Chair: Anna Langford The Gainesville Camellia Society meets at 2 pm on the third Sunday of each month from September through May in the GRU Conference Room at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. Any changes to meeting dates, times, or venues are posted in this newsletter. Gainesville Camellia Society Affiliated with the American Camellia Society Editor: Anna Langford April 2018 President’s Message April is here, we’ve had some rain, and the camellia garden is a sea of spring green. The green is beautiful, the leaves are large, but the seed beetles have been working overtime after dark! Some of the leaves look like Swiss cheese and the others have only a few sickle-shaped cuts here and there. I went out last night about 9:00 PM with a flashlight and saw much damage but few perpetrators. It was cool and beetle activity was slow. I did see a few males sitting at the tips of the leaves waiting for females to pass by. I ruined their expectations by mashing them flat! Can these beetles be controlled? Not easily. First of all they also feed on Virginia Creeper and other non-camellia native and non-native plants in the landscape. Secondly, if you have many large plants, spray applications are Rainbow Seedling, Dinh’s Delight timely. page 2 April 2018 The beetles cause an unsightly cosmetic problem that does not usually kill plants. Young plants are another story and they can be sprayed and protected to some extent with Orthene or Orthenex if you can find it (Orthenex is Orthene plus a fungicide). Follow the instructions on the label and spray the new growth. This is a systemic product which means it is picked up by the plant’s circulatory system and transported mainly to the new growth where it remains active for 2 to 3 weeks killing only the critters that eat the leaves. If one of these products is applied as the new leaves begin to grow, the toxic effect should last until the leaves harden off. After the leaves harden off, the beetles lose interest. Bayer Tree and Shrub comes in a liquid and granular form and does much the same thing as the Orthene and Orthenex, but the time it takes to kill the beetles is slow and it allows them Rebel Yell enough time to make a nice hole in a leaf before they expire. The Bayer product is quite expensive unless you want to protect only a few plants. Just one dose per year. Our second biggest event of the year, the Kanapaha Spring Garden Festival, occurred last month. I hope everyone who participated had as much fun as did the group I was in at 9:00 AM Saturday morning. It was the first decently warm Gainesville day in several weeks and people were rushing out to take full advantage of it. By the time I left at 1:00 PM, we had sold numerous raffle tickets, given out loads of free camellia information, and maybe even had a few potential new members lined up! I’m sure Irma will give us a complete report about the overall affair. Thanks to everyone who volunteered to man the booth. It was a stellar weekend. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the April meeting because I will be on a plane heading for Costa Rica to attend a fly meeting (what else?)! But, Bruce Cavey will once again stand in and conduct the meeting. If you have any old or new business that needs to be Midnight Magic Variegated discussed at the meeting, contact Bruce ahead of time or at the meeting and let him know. page 3 April 2018 The only new item I know of for discussion at the April meeting is the Luncheon at the May meeting. For those of you who have not experienced one of these events, you are in store for a good time. Someone from the group usually volunteers to bring the meats and I think this might have been the Swansons over the past few years. I was not present at last year’s event so this may have changed hands.